Balance of Power
by the stargate time traveller
Summary: Merlin reflects on how the Old Religion has evolved after the genocide committed by Uther. Mentions of Harry Potter and the Worst Witch, but focuses on the Halliwell sisters.


My next Merlin one-shot and my first Charmed story. I had this idea in mind when I dreamt up some Merlin stories, some of them will be crossovers with other fandoms.

I don't own Merlin or Charmed (the original series, that was the best in my mind).

I also don't own Harry Potter or the Worst Witch, who is mentioned in this one-shot.

Enjoy.

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Balance of Power.

He was in two minds about how the Old Religion had evolved, on the one hand he was pleased Magic had survived in some shape or form after the genocidal acts of the Pendragon dynasty which had seen a large chunk of the magical population be wiped out, including millions of magical creatures such as the Great Dragons due to Uther's scapegoating magic as evil simply because he had not bothered to listen to any of Nimueh's warnings - if she ever bothered, of course - about the Power of Life and Death.

And Morgana and Morgause had not helped matters either, with their attempts to take over the kingdom which had only made everyone believe Uther had a point about magic being evil despite the best efforts Merlin had tried to undertake to make Arthur see magic was neither good or evil, though the younger Pendragon had barely listened to him or when he was disguised such as during those two nasty messes where he had tried to save Uther from dying, or to the other time when he had managed to break the enchantment enslaving Gwen.

But something had always happened to make Arthur return to that classic brainwashed state his father had imposed on him, though Merlin had seen with his own eyes that Arthur's mind was turning to the idea magic was neither good nor bad.

It was just ironic Arthur had come to see the truth in his dying days.

With Arthur's death, the relationship between the Old Religion and with ordinary people did not improve. Some kingdoms, Merlin had learnt, had been inspired by Uther and had begun their own purges though those purges were on a much smaller scale than the older Pendragon had unleashed upon the land of pre-Albion.

The death of Arthur had not improved things. One of the good things that had come out of the whole debacle was Morgana's own death, though Merlin had never wanted to kill her even when he had ignored the signs of her becoming what Kilgharrah had manipulated him to do since Merlin had hoped he could help the witch become a great ally, and perhaps even something more. But he had been so scared, so naive. In the end, Morgana had become an evil monster hellbent on killing, revenge, and destruction, never once realising in her quest to bring magic back to Camelot she was just making things worse than they already were.

With the deaths of Arthur, Mordred, and Morgana, the Old Religion had practically collapsed into a frankly pathetic echo of itself. Merlin had done his best to try to stop it from happening, but it had collapsed nonetheless. He had trained with some surviving druids to learn magical legends and secrets not described in the grimoire Gaius had given to him in his first week at Camelot, and he had visited various magical sites in order to increase his knowledge of magical lore, hoping to inspire the return of the Old Religion. It had just….faded with time.

But while Merlin was happy Magic had survived, seemingly evolving into new forms over the centuries to the point where some forms protected themselves by giving a select few magic while giving non-magical people the idea they were practicing magic, there were some aspects that made him worried about the whole thing.

Voodoo and the Wiccan arts were a prime example of those. Merlin _had_ no idea why some who practiced Wiccan magic possessed magic, while others didn't, but it was like the Old Religion was evolving while it tried to recover from the destruction wrought against it by Uther and those other Kings who had only followed Uther's example because of fear or simply because they didn't like the idea of people more powerful than themselves. Merlin guessed that the Old Religion which gifted those select few (and those higher magical beings, the 'Elders', and the 'Whitelighters' with magic while not giving any to the others was a means of putting others off of the scent of the real magical community.

Or there was a whole community hiding underground, using form of magic which made them dependent on wands or staffs and didn't really interact with the others which barely had any kind of relationship with the outside world which made them so reclusive they had no idea how to function in a world without magic, which explained why there were so many problems and a lot of unrest which resulted in occasional Dark Lords - a few of them had crossed the line where Merlin was concerned, but while he was more than ready to step in now and then and had done once or twice over the centuries because their knowledge and mastery of magic was far below his own since he had trained in magic for many centuries than they had in their own communities, they hadn't stood a chance, though over the years it had become simpler and easier for him to simply not care or to let them deal with their own problems.

He was prepared to step in if things became too difficult, but overall Merlin was prepared to just go about his own business.

In his mind, Grindelwald had been the worst; that wizard's charismatic personality had allowed him to bend the wills of millions in Europe who didn't want to spend their lives hiding all the time out of fear of the 'muggles' as they called non-magical people.

Voldemort was nothing more than a savage, and while Merlin wished he could intervene even with the knowledge Voldemort had done something to himself which had twisted him so strongly the Old Religion had reacted, but it had stopped him from truly intervening though it was in his power.

One of the magical communities which fascinated him was a world which was another community with hid itself like the wand-user community, but funnily enough it didn't hide itself to the same extent, and used a kind of magic similar to that of Wiccan magic to the point where they referred to it as 'The Craft,' though he found their stagnant attitudes to be irritating.

From what he knew, there was a girl who came from an old magical family who had lost their magic centuries ago, who had regained the magic after centuries to the point where the memory of their magical background had been forgotten who was now attending a school called Cackles, but that was it.

All of the magical communities were aware of each other in some shape or form, but they were all separated by their similar but different forms of magic.

It was fascinating, but truthfully Merlin had no idea what had possessed the Old Religion to go to all of the trouble of creating so many magical communities that were stacked up against each other, and even going to the trouble of giving real witches and wizards (if that was the right term, he had never been sure) cover so then they would never be discovered. He guessed the Old Religion did not want a repeat of the genocidal Purge which was orchestrated by Uther, but it still didn't explain why it had seemed to be splintered off into different forms like Voodoo, Wicca, the Craft, and Wandless, though he could definitely see the origination point and the similarity many of the spells had with the Old Religion he himself practiced.

Merlin was the last remnant of the Old Religion, and as a result thanks to his immortality which was a curse rather than a blessing, though he had already gathered that thanks to his talks with Kilgharrah when the Dragon was still imprisoned under Camelot and when he had met and spoken with the Fisher King in what was left of his castle, he was the most powerful magical user on the planet.

And in a world which was abandoning magic more and more over the years and replacing it with scientific knowledge and technology, Merlin was thankful for the balance of power that had come about though truthfully there were some factors that made him wonder if it was a good thing or not.

He had no idea when Arthur would return, and the less dangerous forms out there of magic he had to contend with, the better in Merlin's mind.

The Charmed Ones were one group of magic users who had always attracted his attention. While he found their origins interesting since he had never once encountered a trio of witches who had gained separate powers from the same witch ancestor in the past before, though he knew such things were possible, he felt sympathetic because of everything they had gone through.

Not only had the revelations about their nature shaped them as people and made them into completely different people over the years but they had also nearly been shattered by the events that occurred around them. The death of Prue Halliwell had been one of the worst, though Merlin knew there had been others (the death of Prue Halliwell had been one of those moments where he wished he could have intervened in because he knew he could have intervened if he had been close enough, and had known what was going to happen, but he knew he could not alter history).

After the destruction of the Triad, a group of demons whom the Charmed Ones had vanquished, Piper, Paige, and Phoebe had continued with their lives as the Charmed Ones without his need to intervene though he was tempted, more than once, to travel to San Francisco to help the Charmed Ones in any way he could, but in the end he didn't do it.

The Halliwell sisters deserved to live their lives without interference, and in the long run, he had decided to just leave them alone.

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Until my next one-shot.


End file.
